Georgia nosed her Harley alongside Walter Franke’s lab on West Thirteenth Street, in the shadows of an abandoned elevated-freight bridge. Beneath it, two transvestite prostitutes stumbled about in high heels, their garish silhouettes framed by streetlights misty with the damp haze off the Hudson River.
She cut the bike’s engine and listened. On a Sunday night at nine P.M., the only sound that punctuated the darkness was the clinking of rusty meat hooks under corrugated-tin awnings.
A single lightbulb hung above the entrance to Frankel’s one-story building. Georgia leaned on the buzzer that was marked FDNY, FORENSIC INVESTIGATION DIVISION. She didn’t have a backup plan. Please be here, Walter, she prayed. She banged on the door, then noticed it was ajar.
Inside, a fluorescent cylinder flickered from an overhead fixture, throwing odd shadows across the checkered asphalt tile and disappearing into darkness at the end of each hallway. Only the thin white glimmer of light coming from a frosted glass door at the end of the west hallway told her that Walter Frankel was in his office. She called to him, but he didn’t answer.
The office door was open, the lights on. Frankel’s calico cat was mewing anxiously around his desk. Georgia called for him again but got no answer. A mug of coffee next to the telephone was still warm.
He went to the men’s room. She’d take a seat and wait. Then she’d scold him for leaving the door open again.
There was a faint sense of the macabre about the place, about the various pieces of equipment humming for unknown purposes and the cold, dull pewter gleam of the lab tables. Even the Arnold Schwarzenegger poster had a menacing edge to it in the harsh overhead glare.
The calico leaped onto Georgia’s lap, and she jumped. The movement toppled a folder from a pile of papers on a side table, spilling its contents. Georgia picked up the papers. Building records of some sort. She glanced at them more closely and froze. These were the records Mac had given her, the ones that had disappeared from her car the night of the attack. What was Walter doing with them?
A brief gasp, then a gurgling sound, emanated from Frankel’s inner office. The door was closed. Georgia tried to open it now. It wouldn’t budge. “Walter?”
Frankel answered with a hoarse moan. Georgia threw her weight against the door and managed to push it open.
He was lying on the floor, half wedged against the door. A dark red mass radiated from the middle of his chest where an assailant’s bullet had penetrated. His pulse was weak, his skin ashen. She elevated his feet in a feeble attempt to keep him from going into shock.
“It’s okay. You’re gonna be all right,” she said. She pulled out her radio. “Ten-eighty-five. Marshals in need of assistance. Corner of West Thirteenth and Washington streets. Request an ambulance.” She spoke calmly, as she’d been trained to do, but inside she was shaking.
Frankel fluttered his eyes up at her now. His skin was cold and clammy. “Let me die,” he choked out. “It’s better that way…”
“Stop talking like that,” Georgia snapped at him. She took off her jacket and propped it under his head. “You leave the doors open, what do you expect? The Avon Lady?”
“Michaels,” he gasped. “His guys…”
Georgia’s stomach went into free fall. “Michaels came for the disk? But I never told him—”
“You…didn’t…have to.” Frankel looked up at her darkly. Georgia reared back.
“He knew you’d have it? Walter, you weren’t helping him, were you?”
Frankel didn’t answer. A weight settled on her chest. She felt like crying.
“But why? Why would you do a thing like that?”
“I…never meant…to hurt you…” He coughed violently several times, then took a breath and continued. “I went to Michaels…to try to…stop the cover-up.”
“You mean of Finney’s first three HTA fires?” Georgia frowned. “The ones the department didn’t want to make public?”
Frankel closed his eyes and nodded. A logical chain of events began to percolate in Georgia’s brain.
“Because you figured if you went directly to the commish about them, Brennan would retaliate and force you out of the job. So you went to Michaels—gave him copies of the Fourth Angel’s letters—because he was friends with Lynch. You assumed he’d prod the commish to investigate and you’d be off the hook, is that it?”
Frankel winced and turned away. Georgia thought it was from the pain, but as she bent over him now, she could see it had more to do with the embarrassment and shame of her scrutiny. “Oh, Walter.” She sighed, stroking his forehead.
“That’s why…I took the…records…from your car,” he croaked without looking at her. “I still want the truth…to come out.”
“But how do you know Michaels?”
“Amelia…at the hospital…”
“Ah.”
“I didn’t know he would…use it this way.” Frankel blinked back tears. “I didn’t know until—”
“Until I showed you the letter,” Georgia gasped. “The one Michaels claimed to have gotten from the Fourth Angel…but he really got it from you, didn’t he? He used Finney’s fires as a smokescreen to destroy records under subpoena by the IRS.”
“He…didn’t get…the disk.” Frankel turned and gave her a wan smile. “The poster…” He looked up at her like a child wanting to please.
Georgia thought she understood. In Frankel’s outer lab, she tore back a glossy corner of the Schwarzenegger poster. A white legal-size envelope was neatly taped to the wall behind it. The envelope rattled about with the weight of a floppy disk inside. Please deliver to Fire Marshal Georgia Skeehan, FDNY, the lettering on the outside read.
She ran back to Frankel waving the envelope, but he no longer seemed to see her. His skin was cold and a bluish tinge had settled in his fingers and across his lips. She held him close and stroked his face and hair. He couldn’t die. Not this way, not with all this unfinished business between them.
“Hang on,” she whispered. He grimaced, and his breathing became raspy and inconsistent.
“Don’t…search Finney’s place…Michaels…has it rigged.”
“I’ll let the bureau know.” Georgia heard the squeal of an ambulance siren. “Our guys are here, Walter,” she told him, squeezing his hand. “You’re going to be okay.”
His lips barely parted. She leaned in close.
“Hasta…la…vista…baby,” he said. Then his jaw dropped open and his pupils became fixed and dilated. Frantically, she felt for a pulse. There was none.
Fire department EMTs were running down the hallway now. They burst into the room. Georgia stepped back and numbly watched them check Frankel over and shake their heads. Police came and ushered her into the street while they secured the crime scene.
She’d been calm until now. But as she watched the EMTs wheel out Frankel’s body with a sheet over it, she began to shake violently—so violently, she thought she was having a seizure. She stood by the curb, feeling a cool night breeze, listening to the spaced-out chatter of street people. There was no place to sit down, so she sank onto the sidewalk and rocked back and forth, sobbing.
The if-onlys came fast and furious. If only the fire department had heeded Walter’s warnings about Finney’s early fires…If only the marshals hadn’t screwed up the demolition paperwork in the first place…If only Walter had been honest with her about what he’d done…
And the worst wasn’t over—not by a long shot. It was nine-thirty P.M. She had under fourteen hours to stop Finney’s last fire. And arrest Michaels. And confront Jimmy Gallagher. She slipped the disk into her purse.
Her peripheral vision caught the shadow of a tall, lean, gray-haired black man talking to a couple of police detectives while he rubbed a crick out of his shoulders. Randy Carter was here. She looked up with gratitude as he walked over, dressed impeccably as always in a gray pinstriped suit and tie. He squatted down beside her and grunted with the realization that such a maneuver was becoming difficult for a man pushing sixty.
“How you holding out, girl?”
“Oh, Randy.” She blinked back tears. “You don’t know the half of it.” Then she remembered. “You’re supposed to be on medical leave.”
He patted her on the shoulder. “I heard about Finney escaping. Y’all think I’m gonna sit on my butt after that?” He let a moment of silence pass between them. “I saw Frankel…damn. What happened?”
“Am I giving you a formal statement, or are we just talking here?”
“The statement can come when you want it to. You decide.”
Georgia took a deep breath. “Are you up for Dunkin’ Donuts?”
“Long story?”
She nodded.
“Long humdinger of a story?”
She nodded again and smiled. He was teasing her. She needed that right now. They both did, actually.
“All right,” he said. “But one thing. Don’t you be ordering no king-size coffees, then telling me you’ve got to pee, okay? I been there with you, remember?”